USA > Indiana > Vanderburgh County > History of Vanderburgh County, Indiana, from the earliest times to the present, with biographical sketches, reminiscences, etc. > Part 18
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88
called a " long haul " to a " short haul " system, their occupation was gone, and when they were unable to attach themselves to some other life-giving agency, they suf- fered the long-continued agonies of a living death.
Through the aggressive spirit and broad understanding of its leading men, Evansville was not doomed to such a condition. When the through freight from the commercial centers of the east came westward by rail, the steamers that made long trips, for ex- ample from Pittsburgh to St. Louis, or from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, were taken off and put in other trades - shorter trades to supply different demands. River towns at the termini of railway branches running from the trunk lines were made points of distribu- tion for a rapidly growing country, and in many cases the towns so utilized enjoyed a greater degree of prosperity for a time, by reason of the change. Merchants at smaller towns for forty or fifty miles around such a place, were forced by this change of con- ditions to make the railroad point the base of supplies, where previously they had drawn upon the east directly, by means of through steamers. This was true of Evans- ville. Far up and down the river and to all the towns along the tributaries of the Ohio the commercial emissaries found their way and following them were large shipments of merchandise. To the commission men and merchants of Evansville came the surplus going directly to distant points by water transportation as in earlier times.
140
THE CITY OF EVANSVILLE.
business would be transacted on the water. If Evansville had blindly clung to commerce to the exclusion of other factors that enter largely into the growth of modern cities in the middle states, her people would have suffered for the want of employment, or her population would have decreased and her growth been effectually checked. For when supply depots, themselves directly connected by rail with producers and consumers, multi- plied, the usefulness of Evansville would have been diminished, and at length, it seems reasonable to believe, the city would have been of little more importance than other towns that supply a limited agricultural region. But early in her career the mer- chant and manufacturer joined hands. Be- fore passing, however, to the consideration of the relative influence of manufacturing upon the growth of the city, the results of her commerce may profitably engage some attention.
The cheapness of water transportation makes the river a desirable means of get- ting many kinds of produce to market, and there are many portions of an exceedingly productive country still directly dependent upon the river as the carrier of its supplies, with Evansville as a supply depot. These considerations serve to keep up the business about the wharves, though its volume is not so great as formerly. At the present time there are as many steamers registered at this port as there have been at any previous time, and regular packet lines to all the principal places between Louisville and Paducah, and along the Tennessee, Cum- berland and Green rivers, make Evansville their home port. But the commerce of the place has, especially in late years, drawn the railroad into its service. The pioneer road, the Evansville & Terre Haute, is splendidly equipped, and handles large quantities of freight. In 1872 the St. Louis
& Southeastern, running from St. Louis to Evansville, was consolidated with the Evans- ville, Henderson & Nashville, and thus through trains to the south were supplied. Subsequently these lines became the prop- erty of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company. Its trains were transferred by boat between Evansville and Henderson un- til 1885, when the Ohio river was spanned by a steel bridge, 3,686 feet long, and cost- ing $3,000,000, which connects Evansville directly with the wealth of the south, so extensively traversed by the great L. & N. system. Later, the Louisville, Evansville & St. Louis railroad (air line) furnishing a direct route to the East, the Peoria, Decatur & Evansville railroad traversing the rich lands of eastern Illinois, the Evansville & Indianapolis railroad (straight line) afford- ing an outlet for a mining and agricultural region of great wealth, the Ohio Valley railroad and the Belt Line, have been con- structed. Aid has been voted to other lines, and many additions to the already splendid system of railroads centering here are pro- posed. To any one familiar with the good results that flow in such large streams from these powerful agencies in the development of cities, the fact that Evansville maintains a steady growth can bring no surprise. In 18So the population of the city, by the cen- sus report, was a little in excess of 29,000. This census was probably not well taken, for, by careful estimates, based on the num- ber of voters in the city at that time, the number of children in the schools, and the number of names in the city directory, the population was shown to be at least 40,000. The assessed valuation of property amount- ed to $18,152,005, being divided as follows : Real estate, $7,769,805; improvements, $5,149,555; personal property, $5,232,645. In that year the wholesale and jobbing trade was very large in all classes of articles.
141
RAILROAD DEVELOPMENT.
The annual sales of some of these, as estimated upon merchants' reports, are here quoted: Groceries, $3,550,000; dry goods and notions, $2,So0,000; hardware, $180,000; boots and shoes, $1,800,000; leather, $500,000; drugs, $740,000; clothing, $1,500,000; hats, caps and furs, $500,000; china, glass and queens- ware, $350,000; pork packers, $700,000.
Those who, as they grew up into a knowledge of affairs, and in the active periods of their careers saw that Evans- ville's prosperity was drawn almost entirely from the river trade, as was the fact in earlier days, may view the alterations in that trade as a mark of the city's decline. If so, they err, for not only is the number of boats registered larger than ever before, but the changes in the character of their business have been such as to furnish employment to a greater number of men and women residing in Evansville. For- merly steamers brought raw materials and manufactured goods here from different localities, and Evansville merely effected an exchange between the separated consumers and producers. Now these steamers bring crude materials and carry away manufact- ured goods, the transformation from one condition to the other being effected by the brains and hands of the toilers here. Besides the steamers, in this work there are the great steel highways leading in all directions, over which are run, with system- atic regularity, thousands of freighted cars in every month of the year, themselves furnishing employment to a vast number of workmen whose families are a portion of Evansville's society, assisting to support its schools and churches, and each doing some- thing to enhance the public welfare.
That the founders and early settlers of this city builded better than they knew is nowhere more strikingly exhibited than in the fact that the place selected by them is so
favorably located for the development of vast stores of natural wealth of the existence of which they at that time had no knowl- edge. That immeasurable quantities of coal lay under the surface of the new land where they were raising their rude cabins, that the extensive forests of hard wood, with the passage of years, would enter into the world's consumption at so great a value, and that mountains of building stone and rich ores, so essential to the satisfaction of needs they could not dream of then, were to the southward, within easy access, could not possibly have entered into their considera- tion. The trials and misfortunes that checked immigration to the state of Indiana at various times, and the causes which made the incoming of settlers spasmodic, have already received some consideration in these pages. When that great tide of immi- grants poured in between the years 1835 and 1840, the easy-going habits of earlier pio- neers were abandoned. There was a gen- eral awakening, and every new demand evoked an attempt to supply it. Some of the most ordinary farm implements were neither made in Evansville, nor were they to be had at the stores in the place. But the importance of manufacturing, as the most reliable source of substantial growth, was recognized soon thereafter, and from the time when the work of utilizing the wealth of the forests and the fields by con- verting their wild products into implements and articles of use was begun, the mer- chants and capitalists of the city, with un- flagging zeal, have sought to encourage and foster this interest in its varied branches, until to-day there is probably no city in the United States, of equal population, that has a greater diversity of established manufactur- ing industries.
The growth of the city in this particular has been gratifying, but perhaps not so
14ยบ
THE CITY OF EVANSVILLE.
great as might reasonably have been ex- pected when the vast possibilities and means of advancement are considered. There has been a constant increase in the variety of these interests and the aggregate volume of their output. At times the progress has been slow, and some enterprises have failed because of faulty management or financial depression of more than local proportions, but nevertheless the aggregate of the work done has grown from period to period. Manufacturing, in its relation to the general commerce of the present day, is the chief organ in the industrial anatomy. Through the vast channels of commerce, millions of values annually find their way to the arti- sans, mechanics and wage-workers of the world, and by them are worked up into new articles of usefulness, again to be sent out on missions of advancement and upbuild- ing. Manufacturing and commerce, then, are mutually dependent, and in the developed conditions of this age and place, "useless each without the other."
It is estimated with acceptable accuracy that at this time fully $3,500,000.00 of cap- ital are invested here in manufacturing plants engaged in producing various lines of merchandise. The following is a partial list of the number and variety of these estab- lishments now in successful operation :
Agricultural implements, 4; architectural iron works, 5; awnings and tents, 2; bag manufacturer, I; bakery, cracker, I; bak- ing powder, 2; barrel hoops, I; barrel heading, I; bedstead, I; bent material, I; blank books, 4; boiler makers, 5; boot, shoe and gaiter uppers, 3; box manufacturer, wood, I; brass founders, 2; breweries, 3; brickyards, 12; broom manufacturers, 3; candy manufacturers, 4; carriage manufac- turers, 10; carriage springs, I; chair manu- facturers, 6; cigar box manufacturer, 1; coal mines, 8; coffin manufactory, I; corn
meal mills, 4; cotton mill (largest west of New England), I; excelsior manufacturing machine, 1; feather renovating machines, I ; files and rasps, I; flour mills, 8; furniture factories, 8; galvanized iron work, 6; hoe manufacturer, I; hominy mill, I; horse collars, 8; ice factory, I; iron foundries, IO; jeans clothing manufacturers, 4; jewel- ers, manufacturing, 4: laboratory, I; lum- ber manufacturers, 8; machinery builders, 5; malt manufacturers, 2; metallic bottle caps, I ; paper box manufacturers, I ; piano maker, I; picture frame makers, 3; planing-mills, 7; plow handles, I; plow manufacturers, 3; potteries, 3; saddles, harness, etc., 17; sash, doors, etc., 8; saw-mills, II; shoe factory, ladies', I; shirt factory, I; soap manufac- turer, I; stave factories, 3; steam engine builders, 5; stone yards, 3; stove foundries, 6; sugar cane mills, 2; table manufactory, I; tanneries, 2; tin, copper and sheet iron, 20; tobacco manufacturers, 3; tool manu- facturer, I; trunk manufacturer, I; uphol- stery manufacturers, 4; veneers and veneer goods, I; wagon makers, 13; washboard manufacturers, 2; whip maker, I; woolen mill, 1; miscellaneous, 50.
The extent of the flour milling interest is . already considerable, and the extraordinary advantages afforded by cheap fuel and loca- tion in the grain growing region, and near the consuming population of the great South, is already attracting the attention of millers elsewhere, with every prospect that this in- terest will be enormously increased. The following is a statement of the flour business under the present capacity:
Total output of flour per day, 2,100 bar- rels; total output of flour per week, 12,600 barrels; total output of flour per year, 630,- 000 barrels; consumption of wheat per day, 9,500 bushels; consumption of wheat per week, 57,000 bushels; consumption of wheat per year, 2,736,000 bushels; average cost of
143
MANUFACTURING.
wheat per day at 80 cents, $7,600; average cost of wheat per week at So cents, $45,000; average cost of wheat per year at So cents, $2,188,800; average cost of packages per day, $546; average cost of packages per week, $3,276; average cost of packages per year, $157,248; average cost to manufacture per day, at 40 cents a barrel, $840; average cost to manufacture per week, at 40 cents a barrel, $5,040; average cost to manufacture per year, at 40 cents a barrel, $241,920.
This represents the output of seven mills, and it is believed that notwithstanding the capacity of all of them is small, as compared with that of the mammoth mills at Minne- apolis, the cost of production is as small as the cost at Minneapolis, due in large part to the low price of coal and nearness to the grain, while the cost of marketing is very considerably less. Evansville, therefore, may justly claim an unequaled location for the profitable production of flour.
That Evansville should be a large manu- facturer of furniture and woodenwares of all kinds can not occasion surprise, when it is known that the last United States census showed this city to be the largest hardwood lumber market in the United States.
Some conception of the magnitude of the saw-mill and lumber interests may be had from the following statistical data, gathered from the books of those engaged in these enterprises: number of saw-mills, II ; num- ber of men employed, 855; amount of wages paid yearly, $385,000; feet of lumber sawed, 107,500,000; capital invested, $500,000; yearly business, $2,545,000; amount of ground occupied by mills, about 40 acres.
Another evidence of the city's growth is the immense trade in building brick. There are fourteen brickyards within, or just outside, the city limits, with an aggregate daily output of 90,000, and an annual output of more than 15,000,000. There are 200
hands employed. The increase in the growth of the city is partially represented by the increase in the output of these brick- yards, which is about thirty per cent over the product of last year. The entire output of 1887 was sold before the beginning of the spring trade of 1888, and 8,000,000 of the present year's make have already been sold for future delivery. The brickyards not only make the common building brick, but two of them are manufacturing stock or repressed and ornamental brick the equal of any to be found west of the Alleghany mountains. The makers of brick here now ship from 600,000 to 1,000,000 a month to southern states.
One of the most faithful handmaids of manufacturing is mining, the growth of which industry has been commensurate with that concerning which some statistics have just been given. In early days the only fuel used was wood. Many pioneer farmers along the river bank laid the foundations of their fortunes by establishing woodyards and furnishing fuel to the steamboats. The towing of coal from the mines far up the river was commenced in 1850, and a few years later collieries were established in this vicinity and operated with great success. The amount of coal within easy access of the furnaces of Evansville is beyond com- putation. The great abundance of this product of nature and the comparative ease with which it is brought to market, the chief item of cost being the labor-cost in its mining, makes its price to the consumer very low. Under the city there are two veins of soft coal which are reached by ten different shafts within or near the city limits. Vast quantities are transported here by rail and water, there being within a radius of thirty miles no less than sixty shafts in operation. A coal famine has never been known in Evansville, and it is now recog-
144
THE CITY OF EVANSVILLE.
nized as an impossibility, so varied are the sources of supply. The cost of coal is from fifty to seventy-five cents per ton. With such cheap fuel there has not been here, as in many other places, that intense anxiety for the discovery of natural gas, a substance recently thought to promise a revolution in manufacturing industries; how- ever, wells are being sunk in close proximity to the city limits, and gas has been secured within a few miles of the city.
In this connection attention may be di- rected to the vast areas of rich iron ore in the states immediately south of Evansville, and to the fact that for the purposes of com- bining the two substances, iron and fuel, in manufacturing enterprises, the advantages of this city are unequaled. Statisticians show that the values of farm lands in any prescribed area increase in direct proportion with the per cent of the population engaged in other than agricultural pursuits. The farmer early learned that surplus produce without a market was not wealth. The dis- tance between him and the consumers of his products measures the extent of his pros- perity. The same rule governs the pros- perity of the producers of other commodities. A diversity of interests and a diversity of employment, call into action the highest de- gree of mental force and make a community great. Evansville is in the center of a great corn producing country, in the midst of what is known and recognized as the corn belt. Three-fifths of all the tobacco grown in the United States is produced within a circle described about Evansville as a center with a radius 100 miles in length. Ten thousand hogsheads were sold on the "breaks" here last year, and from the ear- liest times the business of handling this pro- duct has been engaged in extensively by men of high business standing and of great financial strength. The grain producing
country directly tributary to Evansville, ex- tends over a large portion of three great states. All forms of produce find here a ready market. Very recently the canning industry has been entered upon, and the cul- tivation of vegetables and small fruits is re- ceiving proper encouragement.
If diversity of interests is the touchstone of municipal greatness, the magnificent growth of this city need not occasion won- der; indeed, the only cause for wonderment is that with its great natural advantages the city has not moved forward with more rapid and more gigantic strides. At this time the population of the city, based upon the most reliable data, is 53,000: and the assessed value of real and personal property within the city limits is $20,825,708.00, to which, to obtain the actual amount of the city's wealth, must be added the value of many factories, among them the cotton mill and the potteries, and many residences located beyond the city limits, as well as from 35 to 50 per cent upon the figures quoted, that being the difference between assessed and actual values. That extensive improvement is being made is apparent to the most casual observer. On every hand can be seen evi- dences of continuous and healthy growth and sound prosperity. Many handsome buildings are being erected, and the hum of industry is everywhere heard. In 1887 the estimated cost of improvements was $276,500.00, while up to the middle of Octo- ber of the present year it was $294,260.00. The city directory now being made shows an estimated increase of 4,000 or 5,000 in the city's population during the present year.
Much of the recent growth has been due to an organized effort on the part of progressive citizens to utilize the gifts of Providence, showered in such abundance at the feet of this city. A Business Men's Association has been formed, its objects
1.45
PRESENT AND FUTURE.
being to effect the betterment of the city and its people in every possible way, and by developing its natural resources to earn for Evansville that rank and recognition among the cities of the world which it ought to receive. The association has already done much good by inducing the establishment here of labor-employing enterprises, and by planning for a magnificent opera-house and public building, now in course of construc- tion, to cost $100,000.00. Its officers are M. J. Bray, Jr., president; W. J. Wood, first vice president; Samuel Vickery, second vice president; S. S. Scantlin, treasurer, and W. S. French, secretary, and among its mem- bers are about 500 of the most progressive and advanced citizens of the place. * *
The development thus far made and past achievements in the various divisions of human effort, suggest the possibilities of the future. Nature with lavish hand has be- stowed her favors; the rapidity and extent of Evansville's growth hereafter must de- pend wholly upon the amount of wisdom and enterprise exercised by its citizens. But it is attempted here to record only the works of the past and the present status of the city. To recite achieved facts, not to utter hopes, speculate upon possibilities, suggest public needs, or means of quick development, is the sole privilege of the writer. The " lamps of prophecy " can not be lighted; the realms of the future can not be invaded.
With its population of 53,000, Evansville is already the second city in a state having over 2,000,000 intelligent and progressive inhabitants. Located on the Ohio river, above the reach of the highest waters known to history, commanding the trade of the great south, with eight steamboat lines, five of them daily packets with this as a terminal point, sixty registered steam-
boats, and seven well constructed and admirably equipped railroad lines, the com- mercial advantages of the city are patent to all. From the earliest times, with every change in the commercial facilities and methods of the west, Evansville has had a most enviable position. When the water- ways were in the ascendency she com- manded a great trade; as they are par- alleled and perhaps worsted in the sharp contest for supremacy in the commercial world by their great competitor, the iron horse, Evansville becomes a railroad center and maintains a high position among the chief cities of the middle states. The fittest sur- vives always; in means of transportation as well as all things else. Great streams like the Mississippi, the Missouri and the Ohio have already lost much of their commercial value. They may continue to lose through- out the coming half century. That this city may maintain its commercial standing, its large minded citizens will doubtless see to it that its advantages are not curtailed by any neglect in the construction of rail- roads, the only means of securing its proper relation to the surrounding country, now rapidly developing.
With cheap fuel and cheap transportation from the cotton fields and iron mines of the south, as the center of an almost limitless supply of hard wood, and with every facility for manufacturing, it is not surprising that no. place of equal population throughout the length and breadth of the land has a greater diversity of manufacturing interests. The largest cotton mills west of New England, and over 300 manufacturing establish- ments in operation, give the city a prominent place among producers of manu- factured goods. With a banking capital of $3,000,000, and surrounded on all sides by the richest agricultural region, her mercan- tile exploits are of necessity very extensive.
146
THE CITY OF EVANSVILLE.
With artificial gas and electric light plants, waterworks, street railways, well improved streets, many miles of free gravel-roads, elegant and commodious public buildings, and every public convenience; with schools, churches and libraries worthy her industrial importance, unsurpassed social advantages, many elegant private residences, and numer- ous cottages owned by their occupants; and with several extensive and important enter- prises projected and in process of establish- ment, Evansville, as it now is, may be truly called a great city. And, further, its varied and extensive natural advantages, inexhaust- ible sources of wealth, already referred to in detail, lead to the conclusion and warrant the assertion that this city has nothing for which it may be more thankful than its future.
BIOGRAPHICAL.
HON. WILLIAM HEILMAN was born in Albig, Rhenish Hesse, Germany, October II, 1824. His father, Valentine Heilman, was a reputable farmer who died in 1826. For her second husband Mrs. Heilman married Peter Weintz, and in 1843 the fam- ily came to America, landing in New Orleans. Thence they moved to St. Louis and shortly afterward to Posey county, Ind., where Mr. Weintz engaged in farm- ing. William was at this time a sturdy lad of nineteen years and had evidenced the possession of those traits of character which have since contributed so largely to his suc- cess. Life on a farm was not congenial and he resolved to seek a more profitable voca- tion. In 1847 he came to Evansville, and in company with his brother-in-law, Chris- tian Kratz, established a small machine shop and foundry on Pine street, using two blind horses to supply the motive power. In a comparatively short time the tact and sa- gacity of Mr. Heilman as a man of affairs began to attract attention. Three years
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.